


Employed Where the Sun Don't Set

by Neffectual



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Project Runway AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 07:57:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4471412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxas has always wanted only one thing - to have his own fashion line, even when it meant sewing Sora into dresses. Axel's clothing line has spiralled him to fame and made him a judge on Project Runway. But what of the rumours that the two of them are fucking the whole way through filming?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Employed Where the Sun Don't Set

**Author's Note:**

> Written to Suede. A lot of Suede. And other Britpop. The 90's called, they want their music back.

Roxas starts sewing aged five, pinning dresses onto Sora after Kairi breaks her arm climbing trees, telling his brother off for wriggling, talking around a mouthful of pins. After that first year, he rules Kairi too unreliable and leaves her to sword fights with Riku, spending his days inside with Sora as his dress form, creating simple circle skirt with a tight bodice, pulling Sora in at the waist and flaring him out where his hips aren’t. 

“You’re stabbing me again, Woxas!” Sora protests, bottom lip wobbling at the pain.

“Sorry, sorry, I just… it won’t lie flat.” Roxas stomps his little foot in indignation and stands back to check the silhouette.

“And I’m thirsty.” Sora whines, getting perilously close to tears.

“Soon.” Roxas says, going back to pinning, distractedly, “Five more minutes.”

He doesn’t understand yet why he makes the shapes follow the lines of a woman; simply chasing the shape of their mother’s dresses, the garments he sees on television and in film, the way Kairi’s older sister, Ariel, wears low-slung skirts and draped crop tops. He follows the idea of a woman, the dream of teenage girl chasing womanhood and very nearly catching it. Sora moves too much to be a good dress form for someone who’s just starting out, gets pricked by pins a lot, but he still stares up at his older brother with wide, blue eyes, trusting him to make him the princess in their games for once. 

 

At ten, Sora’s started sports, getting bulkier and broader in the way that boys do, legs too thick for patterned tights all of a sudden, and Roxas’ face is a constant moue of disappointment as he pins and re-pins, making way for his brother’s growth spurt. He enters competitions and never wins, blaming it on himself and not the way Sora’s growing faster than his seam allowance can make room for. Sora takes himself out of a few competitions, too, for sporting events, and Roxas sits on the beach and pretends he’s not furious – furious with himself, the world, his sewing, but never, ever angry with his brother. 

“I’m sorry, Dem told me that this was a big competition – “ Sora says, joining his brother on the beach, barefoot and still sweaty from volleyball, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to where their older brother is waiting in the car.

“It’s fine.” Roxas answers, not turning around to look at his brother for fear that his eyes won’t be able to tell the lie, “There are other competitions.”

“I’ll be there for the next ones.” Sora promises, sitting down next to Roxas and leaning his head over to his brother’s shoulder.

“I know.” Roxas pushes his brother over into the sand, and the two scrabble at each other, laughing, until Demyx honks the horn in a clear indication that they’d better get their butts in the car before he drives home without them.

Whatever else he is, Roxas is not stupid, and he knows that this is his passion, not Sora’s, and that his brother letting him play dress up is a gift not to be sneered at. He tells himself that he’ll celebrate, not cry, when Sora finds his own passion and steps away from being his model and plaything, but he asks Santa for a dress form that year, and doesn’t let Sora see his list.

 

He’s fifteen when he sees one of Axel’s fashion spreads for the first time. Just Axel, no second name, because he’s that much of an arrogant cock; all red hair and piercings, dripping with ink and hair spiked to fuck in a fauxhawk which says punk’s coming back in a big way. The clothes are everything Roxas doesn’t make, all asymmetric shapes and visible seams, boning and leather trim – it’s not his aesthetic, but he starts to think that maybe he might try a few of the lace pieces as additions to some of his dresses. Axel just doesn’t dress his girl, doesn’t follow his muse, but more than the clothes, his eye just keeps on being drawn back to the sneering face of the designer himself, all of twenty-three and already taking the couture world by storm. He doesn’t do ready to wear, it says, just avant-garde ideas, selling the dream more than the reality of what a woman should wear. 

“Who’s that?” Kairi asks, hanging over his shoulder and gaping, “Looks like a fuckboy.”

“You’re not allowed on tumblr anymore.” Roxas says, offhand, before frowning, “He’s this new bigshot designer they reckon will show at fashion week.”

“You’re talking about Axel?” Sora asks, brushing past with his own lunch, “Seems like a dick.”

“In the sense of fuckable, oh baby, oh baby?” Riku asks, sliding into the seat across from Sora and snatching the magazine away, “Oh wow. Yes please.” He lets out a low whistle, cut off as Sora kicks him in the dick from under the table.

“Still calling it – total fuckboy.”

Roxas grabs his magazine back and looks at the picture again.

“This is everything I want.” He says, quietly, almost too low for anyone to hear.

“What, some redheaded slut? Kairi could – “ Riku goes silent again as both Kairi and Sora kick him this time, and he scowls, turning back to his lunch.

Roxas goes back to his magazine, ignoring everything until Sora reaches for his fries and gets casually slapped away. The magazine article says that Axel got his big break entering competitions, just like he’s been doing for the past five years, but it also says he won at least half of those. Roxas hasn’t won shit, and he’s worried about what that says about him. Axel looks cool, confident and everything that tumblr fucking raves about, all those smoky eyed girls scowling at the camera like the photographer just asked them for a handjob by a dumpster. Roxas’ ‘girl’ on the other hand, is his brother in circle skirts, slinky evening gowns and Lolita-style dresses, in floaty silk shirts and tight skirts. He wanted to get Ariel to model for him, but she left for college, pursuing her art degree and getting all that sweet art student pussy, or whatever else it is hot redheads do at college. So he’s left with Sora, and Kairi, when they can both be convinced away from sea swimming and volleyball practices, and his dress form. He wonders if he’s ever going to be able to tell the story of who he is as a designer, if he’s ever going to come close to having his dream.

 

Sixteen and less than sweet, Roxas has finally found his way into a competition which might reap great rewards for him. He’s got through to the last round, making a collection of four dresses, taking a look from morning through to evening. Kairi’s his model this time, Sora seen as too out there, but once more, she’s unavailable on the big day, and his brother steps in. Roxas swears at him, curses him out, trying to flatten that ridiculous hair and build up some sort of breast shape on Sora’s too-flat chest. It’s not as if Kairi’s exactly stacked, but she’s still got more than Sora, even on a bad day. 

“I can’t believe she fucking let me down - what am I saying, of course I can fucking believe it.” Roxas is muttering, through clenched teeth, as he works on the evening dress, pinning in a couple of new darts so no one notices his model’s got a fucking dick.

“She didn’t mean to.” Sora tries, defending their friend, but Roxas is having none of it.

“She knew this was the finals, she knew this was fucking important, and she still decided that – “

“Calm the fuck down when you’ve got a needle near my dick.” Sora says, bluntly, and Roxas is so shocked at the phrasing that he drops the fold he’s trying to create altogether, “You’ve made bigger alterations in shorter amounts of time before, like when I ripped that princess gown and wouldn’t stop crying.”

“You were seven.”

“And you still fixed it and made it all better for me. Do it now. Magic fingers, right?”

“You’re going to use that if I ever manage to convince someone to sleep with me, aren’t you?”

Sora just grins, and Roxas punches him in the arm before picking up the fabric again, hand-sewing the last few inches of the seam he needs to create a panel of flat space at the front of the dress. Thankfully, Sora’s got a bubble butt, so he doesn’t have to fake that, at least.

The judges aren’t too harsh, and once they realise Sora’s a dude, some of them seem to think Roxas is making a bold statement about gender norms and the way women are sexualised in the media. He just goes with that and makes a note to thank Naminé for that lecture on post-modern feminism she’d given him after he tried to touch her ass in gym class. He wasn’t sure he’d actually listened, but apparently some of it had made it through; enough to bullshit his way into second place, at the very least. He doesn’t get anything for coming second, but the local papers do a story about him and his ‘transitional fashion aesthetic’ as they phrase it, and he guesses that has to be good enough. The big competitions don’t open up until he’s eighteen, so he figures he has two more years to go in which to get even better, even more diverse with the way his garments work, and who they work for. He also figures he’s got a lot of research on gender norms to do if he wants to keep on using Sora as his model.

 

Seventeen is the year he almost gives up sewing, almost gives up on everything, hiding a secret he doesn’t dare let anyone know as he stays inside and sketches form after form, unable to see anything but androgynous figures in lace and low-cut blouses, in high leg panties and leather jackets, stockings and heavy silver cufflinks. He doesn’t make anything, remaking himself instead, over and over, drawing figure after figure just like the ones he sees whenever he closes his eyes. He can’t tell anyone, doesn’t dare say anything, spends his time defending fashion as something that anyone can be into, regardless of orientation, and doesn’t dwell on the fact that every time he touches himself, he thinks of broad shoulders and narrow hips, flat chests and muscled calves. He locks his room even to Sora, who has always had an open invitation, and doesn’t talk at school, too busy wondering what everyone will think, what everyone will say, if he should have known this years ago when he first wanted to make dresses, to make people pretty. 

“If there’s ever anything you want to tell me – “

“There isn’t.” Roxas snaps, watching Sora’s face fall.

“I know that you’re scared.” Sora says, determinedly, “But no one’s going to say anything.”

“About what?” Roxas spits, voice sharp, “Been snooping around my room again, have you?”

Sora shakes his head, mutely.

“You don’t have to drive us all away just because you don’t like yourself much right now. We still love you.”

“Fuck you.”

Sora snaps.

“Look, I’m bi, Kairi’s heteroflexible, Riku’s queer - what the fuck are we going to judge you on?”

Roxas doesn’t speak for the rest of the night, just cries into Sora’s shoulder as his younger brother tells him that everything is going to be okay, that they’ll still love him, that this doesn’t change anything at all. He goes back to sewing the next morning, putting together something intricate and lacy which – for once – isn’t a dress, and isn’t made for the female form. High-necked sleeveless shirts become his go-to when he’s itching to try something new, or make a new look, and Kairi just rolls her eyes at him as he fits them to her figure, one after the other. He makes her prom gown as an apology, and she’s never looked better, with Sora on one arm and Riku on the other. It’s a sigh of relief for him to go back to working, after a break of nearly eight months, and Sora stands perfectly still the first time he asks him to model for him. Roxas jabs him with a pin anyway, for old time’s sake.


End file.
